These images have so many of the things that I would like to have. The bell jars, typewriter, microscope, thongs, bones, syringes and even Albert Einstein! The syringes are so beautiful. They are made of glass and stainless steel. It is hard to find things like these nowadays. Everything is plastic and disposable.

There is absolutely nothing going on for me right now. I’m just stoning at home (like the million other times before). I’m trying to get some work done to prepare for next next week’s MST (Mid-Semester Tests). Nothing is going in my head either really. Phooey.

Anyway, Christmas is coming soon and I can already see people in my Facebook Feed talking about the Christmas spirit in the air. I’m thinking of stuff to do over Christmas.

They’re not exactly resolutions. Just, you know, those kind of thoughts where you go, “Hey, that Christmas period coming up? Hmmm, I bet I could get together with my secondary school pals. Or maybe go swimming. Visit a couple of museums!”

That last idea was just lame but, what the heck, you never know.

I decided I would paint my room. My room walls have been the same color day in, day out for the past 20 years. And its white. Not pure white. Its white with some kind of irregular gray dots on them. It looks ghastly. What’s worse, it can be ripped off with nothing more than scotch-tape.

Yes, scotch-tape. The stuff you use to bludgeon your Christmas gift with if you can’t seem to wrap it quite neatly. Just stick it on my wall, and pull it off.

There’ll be a white background (oh, surprise) behind it that has a powdery texture. I think its the last layer before I hit concrete. Civil Engineering of the 20th Century. Fascinating.

We are having family pictures done tomorrow. So a hair cut was in place for Vince. He SCREAMED for the whole 10 minues. B held him and I tried to get it as even as possible… Vince also managed to mark his brother by scratching a X on his forehead with his fingernails (which now has been cut). Being a mom of two is still work in progress.

Thanksgiving with my family can range from very dull (just me and the family who already lives in Houston, making it feel just like any other dinner except with turkey, which none of us really like much) to very exciting (lots of my uncle’s glamorous friends from out of town, creating a weekend long party with margaritas and leftovers). This year was somewhere in between, and it was amazing. Up until Wednesday night, we all thought it would just be the Houston family plus my dad’s sister and her daughter (aka, my aunt and cousin) from Los Angeles. But somehow the aforementioned glamorous friends of my uncle ended up on our guest list, upping our count from 8 to 21. It wasn’t quite the crazy party from 2 years ago that spanned into the little hours of the morning and picked up again the following afternoon and night. We played pool, poker, saw the tree lighting and fireworks on Post Oak, watched X-Men and the UT/A&M game (hook ‘em) and then called it a night.

Aunt Diane and cousin Allix; Nana and Granddaddy

Dad and Mom who does not smile; Uncle Marty and his new friend Lisa

Fireworks on Post Oak

Me, Eva, Annie, Rachel, Kay, Kelly, Ruby

no turkey on thanksgiving. no splurge. no visitors. just us. quiet. doing our thing. what we always do. eat. sleep. exercise. make things. read. share. spend time. enjoy togetherness. made me go back through a lot of our pictures and sketches and words.

i’ve been wanting to paint on our walls. paintings. not decor painting. art. things.

we have a big blank wall in our sunroom. i’m going to put something on that wall. the words i revisited today are from our wedding vows. i drew a picture. then i swirled them all together in photoshop. something like this on that wall would be nice. i’m thankful for these words. i’m thankful for that wall. i’m thankful for the man who stood in the circle with me and said these words. i’m thankful for the man who built that wall so i can put the words on it. i’m thankful for pen and paper. i’m thankful for the doodle on the paper. i’m thankful that i can live a life, have been nurtured into a life, where i can be these things….these words…these drawings….with this man.

I went to a church service this week, and the entire thing focused on thanking God for the many blessings in each person’s life. It was a really great service, and I enjoyed hearing the many different blessings people shared. Here is my list of blessing I’ m thankful for…

1. God. Without him nothing else would be possible.

2. God’s amazing love, grace, and patience. Without it, I would be lost in a dark, and scary world. He never gives up on me.

3. My parents for not “terminating the pregnancy” in Summer 1982, because of the odds that I would not develop normally. (Mom didn’t know she was prego, and was taking prescription meds for a cold.) I wouldn’t be here if they had chosen otherwise.

4. My family for always supporting me, loving me, and being there when I need to talk, need a hug, or need anything.

5. My relationship with my brother Josh. He’s a best friend.

6. My job, and also my home. Self explanatory.

7. Kally Barnett-without her my ANTM (America’s Next Top Model) dreams would of never made it onto film.

8. For the ups and the downs of life…lessons can be learned from each experience.

9. Madison…yes, my dog. She’s excited to see me, no matter what kind of day I’ve had.

10. Living in this great country. I’m so very thankful for the freedoms we have, and for all the brave troops who risk (and have risked) everything, so that we may be free.

This is only a short list of the many things I’ve been blessed with…if I were to continue, this would be a LONG post. Happy Thanksgiving. I can’t it’s already the end of 2009.

Norm, remain calm. It’s not a big deal. It probably doesn’t mean anything.

I had a conversation with my brother last night. I gave him and my sister rosaries. As I was briefly telling him about how to pray it, and he reluctantly listened, the conversation drifted pleasantly from Mary (mostly her perpetual virginity) to things like Eucharist, Baptism, general morality, and how the idea of Authority was at the core of these doctrinal differences. I made it clear that I wasn’t trying to convert him (though I guess I was a little). I left it the conversation with this bit of advice: to not simply accept where he is because that’s where he is. I told him not to stay at his church because its where our mom wants him or because its where I first took him when I started going to church. I told him to stay there because its where he honestly believed the truth to be. I told him to just continually pray that God would show him truth, and that he would be unafraid to follow God, but to be willing to truly listen, and not to make up his mind before he listened to God (good advice to for me too as I discern the priesthood).

I overheard him say to my mom about 20 minutes ago that he kind of understands why I chose Catholicism (not so much that I chose Catholicism, but that I chose to follow Christ, but he’ll understand that someday). Of course my mom said “Oh Lord” and said that the rule was that he could choose to go anywhere, but he had to talk to the pastor at the Baptist church first. That’s not a bad thing, but I don’t think my mom is any position to make rules about what my brother must do if he decides to accept the truth. But that’s a little off track.

Anyways, I pray for my brother and sister every day, entrusting them to Mary and the Saints, and they do pray for them.

I’ve been hearing this song on the radio – often.  It never fails to make me tear up. 

Heaven is the Face

Heaven is the face of a little girl
With dark brown eyes
That disappear when she smiles
Heaven is the place
Where she calls my name
Says, “Daddy please come play with me for awhile”

God, I know, it’s all of this and so much more
But God, You know, that this is what I’m aching for
God, you know, I just can’t see beyond the door
So right now

Heaven is the sound of her breathing deep
Lying on my chest, falling fast asleep while I sing
And Heaven is the weight of her in my arms
Being there to keep her safe from harm while she dreams

And God, I know, it’s all of this and so much more
But God, You know, that this is what I’m longing for
God, you know, I just can’t see beyond the door

But in my mind’s eye I can see a place
Where Your glory fills every empty space
All the cancer is gone
Every mouth is fed
And there’s no one left in the orphans’ bed
Every lonely heart finds their one true love
And there’s no more goodbye
And no more not enough
And there’s no more enemy
No more

Heaven is a sweet, maple syrup kiss
And a thousand other little things I miss with her gone
Heaven is the place where she takes my hand
And leads me to You
And we both run into Your arms

Oh God, I know, it’s so much more than I can dream
It’s far beyond anything I can conceive
So God, You know, I’m trusting You until I see
Heaven in the face of my little girl
Heaven in the face of my little girl

(song and lyrics by Steven Curtis Chapman)

You can read more about Steven Curtis Chapman and the story behind this song here.

All of this to say that, this Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the most basic things…

~ for one more day, one more breath – which are both gifts from God

~ for God’s presence with me, his provision for me, and his protection over me and my family

~ for Christ’s death on the cross - that offers me eternal life with Him – and the hope of the reunion in heaven one day with those I love who are already gone

~ for my children

~ for my husband and our marriage

~ for other relationships in my life with friends and extended family

What are you most thankful for today?

Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.

Ann Radcliffe, 1764

You told me you were here. I maneuvered through the crowds at Piccadilly Station to find you, my heart beat doubled when I read your text saying ‘Where are you?’. I searched even harder.

You must have seen me coming, because you were standing there in the middle, smiling as you saw me approaching. Your that sweet, soul reassuring smile, waned my urgency and of when our gazes met, I longed to hug you tight and never let go. I wished I did. And I wished that I did complement your air of simplicity too. It must be your causality without scarf, or the light touch of perfume you wore, or the appearance of you without handbag slung across your shoulder. It was just you, and nothing else. You were attractive just the way it was.

Do you remember that night? It was Friday, the night which I was supposed to have Japanese with friends, but instead I found myself, sitting next to you in the bus heading towards our favourite Chinese restaurant which we made an attempt to have it once a week. That was our once, and I remember my head was burdened with work which I shouldn’t have, and while I was moaning, you reached your hand to mine, and you told me with that comforting voice of yours: everything will be fine. Ignorance. I continued on, complaining. It was the only thing that I wanted to do. You seemed detached, because obviously, you wanted more.

It was a tough night for you for it was to me. But you stayed on, we shared the finest kiss after. It was in your room after I sent you back.

I left with your perfume sprayed on my wrist.

………………

It was under the illumination of bright lit orange street lamp that accentuated the drizzles.

Standing underneath the bus stop across the street lamp, the scene was fairly odd when both far stretched from the visibility of the previous and the next, the road was fairly empty and dark. Trees aligned were naked with branches plastered against the cold, the silence made the atmosphere prominence, I was fitted amidst the scene, the only living soul that could be heard breathing. I let out a sigh with vapour, hands in jeans pockets, I shivered whenever the cold breeze blown past. I was infuriating with the Stagecoach which should be here minutes ago.

I should have texted you about everything or nothing at all just to reassure you my presence was real, that each and every bone or flesh of mine was of touchable by your soft skin or your frolicking hair. But of perhaps exactly that sounding reason, that I decided not to. It was of a complication of astounding detachment of mine that lured solitude or a pinch of silence as to how much I cared about you that I dreaded upon the reality of drowning myself with truths that I let it linger around me. Just like your perfume that never goes, it sips through my skin, my sleeves or even my mind with any kind of forceful obliteration proved fruitless which only aggravates pain and more pain in return. It’s like alienating drugs from an addict.

It might seen absurd to you as to me that the more intimate we were, the more I felt like losing you. As though each and every kiss we shared, was a bid of farewell that crawled unnervingly without solid warning that I failed to see it coming. Perhaps I did, but I never took the feelings too much to care. It might be a phase, or any unrelenting delusions that clouded my perceptions as of how  much I loved you that I was afraid to lose you. It might be of that latter, it must be, because since my last separation, I never met anyone who managed to breach my air of solitude and won my cold heart totally from head to toe from the trysts. You were the one after a long time. You snatched my freedom away.

A relationship between two people, just like a sequence of words, is ambiguous if it is open to different interpretations. And if two people do have differing views about their relationship, not just about state, but about its very own nature, then the difference  can affect the entire course of their lives. Was it you who dwell much of expectations that in realm of reality trying to fit the images as of how I should have been or was it me that I expect too few from you that my string of attachment seemed loose that you felt insecure and that I never really cared? You were surprised with my frustration when you asked my permission to have a night out at Area 51 with another guy that I literally appalled with force. I felt a sense of betrayal of you manipulated the freedom I gave you and reciprocated with my loose guardian as your reasoning. Perhaps, the problem was already there the first day I met you. Perhaps, it was my fault. Perhaps, I never loved you deep enough to show.

This is true. No matter how intense the feelings are, if you have two separate souls, two spirits, two poles, something will always give. Can love endure without sacrifice?

Can we?

………………

Again, it was your perfume I smelled when the breeze blew and I inhaled them willingly. It might be of an awakening that during the waiting or the melancholic rain in nature that I finally realized where we were heading to. I never told you this because we just shared a moment of intimacy that it would never make sense to either both of us, especially me. It was on my way back, finally seated comfortably on the bus with flashes of scenes where velocity lived, my eyes were not able to keep up the phantasmagoria. The pace. In fact, I could not keep up with array of things lately. That was the moment, that distancing myself away from that familiar bus stop towards home, alone, that I felt completely worn out.

Love can bring a person far enough to nothing. It’s a cycle. Rise and fall, rise and fall. But how much a person can endure this torturing cycle of endurance?

Could I be possibly tell you all this by text that night? I doubt so. So I succumbed the tiny little voices within, hoping again, that it might be a phase, that after the rain, it would wash off my lethargic soul and hammer me with profound optimisms as to how to restructure the remainings. I relied too much on externals that I never really be internally honest with myself, with my state of mind, and most importantly, my feelings towards you.

Love failed when either one of us gave up fighting. I was afraid to love beyond what I could lose when it came to you. I could not give more than what I should have or what you expected me to, that was why I chose to tell you.

It was that night in front of that dimmed carousel that you cried. I hugged you tight. It was the first time I saw you cry with that perfume of yours.

]]> http://lifemoreabundant.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/snatching-a-few-moments/ Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:05:32 +0000 Coralie http://lifemoreabundant.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/snatching-a-few-moments/

My life right now runs full out non-stop from roughly 6:30 in the morning when my Cheesedoodle wakes up until 11:30 in the evening when I have welcomed home my husband and heard about his shift at work.  I feel like I’m always behind, and I just have to choose the things that get left undone.  Somethings choose for me. If I don’t cook, we can’t feed ourselves or the mackerdoodle.   If I don’t do dishes, we can’t feed ourselves or the mackerdoodle.  If I don’t do laundry we can’t dress ourselves or mac n cheese.  These are the very fundamental Proverbs 31 requirements and they are always at the top of my priority list.  But some other things are a little fuzzier.  How long can I let the toilet go unscrubbed before I’m just being disgusting?  When do I answer the phone and chat with family or long distance friends?  Do I play outside with my toddler (a good healthy thing) or stay inside and bake bread (a good healthy thing)?

As you’ve noticed, the blog has fallen to the bottom of the to-do list, and even that is a difficult decision.  I find myself using my blog archives to remember events in my children’s lives, which means I want to continue making my blog a priority, if for nothing else than to help me document my children’s young years.

So right now I have four different drafts in my folder with titles ranging from “Do all by self” to “But to whom are we thankful?  A thought on Thanksgiving.”  but the one that is being published is the only one I have time to finish:  the post about how I don’t have time to post.  I suppose that in itself is a documentation of my life right now.

The day before “Thanksgiving” at my house is really busy!

Actually it’s the time that we celebrate “Thanksgiving” or at least it’s the day we start (we celebrate it several times this week).

Tonight we will have the staff and leadership of Crossroads over for a “mega-feast”.  We’ll have more food than you could ever imagine!

Let me take a few minutes to thank you guys for all you do to make Crossroads the great place that it is.  I think God has lots of stuff coming down the pike for us and I couldn’t be more honored and thankful for each one of you!

Enjoy the next few days!

The area just before you leave our house on work days looks something like this, most days:

Please disregard the scuffed wall and dirty floor – this is life and its not always pretty and clean, apparently.   

Jeff had already left or his lunch box and water bottle would have been in that row, too.  It’s all those things we don’t want to forget on our way out.  That entire row of bags is mine and its for just one day, if you can believe it.  I know it looks like I’m leaving for a week with all those bags.  The bags from left to right: my “purse” contains wallet, planner, journal, camera, etc.; then we have my lunch bag packed with applesauce, leftover cooked carrots, hardboiled eggs and a slice of bread with cream cheese & green tomato apple jam; my “Artist’s Way” class bag containing snickerdoodles (treats for the last class), gifts for the teacher and my classmates, and my book; finally we have my knitting bag full of projects some nearing some completion, some just beginning, and of course the sock. 

Many days this area has library books that need returning, empty canning jars and clean rags to be put in the garage, and much, much more.  It just seems the easiest way for me to remember things and while it doesn’t always look neat, it is essential to keeping me from looking for things as I try to get out of the house on my way to work.  It also keeps empty jars from filling up the kitchen counters.

I keep thinking I should put some kind of shelving unit there to help it look neater, but frankly a shelf in that space would just look too bulky, I think.  We do have a coat rack on the wall next to the door, but its generally full of coats, scarves, and hats and I’m not sure it could handle the weight of a bag of library books on top of the outerwear.  It’s a narrow space and if I ever find the perfect shelf, I’ll pick it up, but for now I’m content to just line up my bags and boxes next to the door.  It makes the house look “lived in,” right? 

Have a great Thanksgiving to everyone in the states and if you’re not have a great Thursday tomorrow!  I am so thankful to each of you who stop by here.

I’m not sure if I’ll be back in this space before Monday as I want to enjoy a long weekend away from the computer, I think.  One never knows what urges may strike.